


burn with the brightest flame

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Week Two: AU [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Found Family, Parent Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Podfic Welcome, Protective Plagg, Rescue, Runaway Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, as far as plagg is concerned this is HIS kid now, dragon rider au, fairy tale princess adrien, if you're gonna guard the tower with a dragon, maybe pay a little more attention to what the dragon is like, the kwami are dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-20 11:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: A few years ago, the rich and royal in the Thirty Kingdoms began trapping dragons to guard their children from harm.  Adrien is one of those children and has lived in a tower with only his dragon, Plagg, for those few years.The rich and royal should probably have paid more attention to how the dragons feel about this situation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for the 'fairy tale' au for adrienaugreste 2k19; thanks shinobicyrus for the beta!

"Kid. Hey, kid." A scaled nose nudges him, gently at first, then with enough force to nearly knock him off the bed.

"Plagg," Adrien mumbles, still not fully awake. "You know you're supposed to stay downstairs, right?"

A snort, which is a little harrowing from the creature beside him. Adrien rolls out of the way with long practice, but for once Plagg's only breathed out heat and not true flame. 

It's still uncomfortable enough for Adrien to sit up in a hurry and throw his blankets off.

Plagg sits back on his haunches and looks at him expectantly, licking his lips like a cat that's gotten into the cream.

Adrien blinks at the little dragon. 

"Today?" Plagg asks, only hissing a little this time, and Adrien sighs.

"No, not today," he tells Plagg, the same way he tells Plagg every time. "Maybe tomorrow."

"You always say that," Plagg whines, flopping onto his side and idly tearing at the carpet. Adrien winces, but it isn't as though anyone comes this far into the tower, anyway. As far as everyone else knows Plagg really does stay downstairs on guard duty like he's supposed to. 

Adrien is reasonably sure his father's told everyone that Plagg is a much larger dragon than he really is.

In reality, Plagg's not a whole lot bigger than the castle cats, but he _is_ easily three times as clever. 

He's also Adrien's best friend, which is- probably not what anyone had intended when they gave him a guardian dragon. 

The way Plagg looks at it, though, no one gave Adrien a guardian so much as they gave him _ to _ a guardian. 

Adrien is also reasonably sure no one had paid quite enough attention to what _ kind _of dragon they'd found to guard the tower. He knows they didn't realise how intelligent Plagg is, because he and Plagg have kept that to themselves for years now, and he isn't sure they'd noticed how powerful the little dragon is, either. Adrien can't really blame them for not knowing that- Plagg doesn't exactly advertise it.

Plagg _ is _ capable of intense, sustained destruction magic, but Adrien's only ever seen him use it for trivial things, like breaking windows or shredding up yet another rug to make himself a comfortable nest. A comfortable nest in Adrien's room, beside Adrien's bed, where Plagg is definitely _ not _ supposed to be.

But then it isn't as though anyone's ever checked.

Adrien falls backwards to blink up at the calendar he'd scrawled across the ceiling with Plagg's help ages ago. He groans. "It's a festival week, isn't it?"

Plagg rolls back upright, flapping his wings idly and creating a mini tornado that sends Adrien's sketches and notes from yesterday's tutoring session flying. Adrien doesn't bother to collect them; he knows Plagg is only going to do the same thing later, so he might as well wait. "Yeah, kid. I don't remember which one, but no one's gonna be in to check on us for a bit." He tilts his head, his voice turning coaxing. "Which, ya know, means no one around to stop us leaving. Just. _Straight_ out the window, kid."

"You're a little small to carry me off, Plagg," Adrien says mildly, giving in and kneeling down to collect his scattered papers. If no one is coming today then he might as well finish his studies from the day before.

Plagg makes a face. It's always a really weird thing to see a dragon do. "Climbing is a thing, kid, we can absolutely still go out the window. Oh look, what a coincidence, it's open, let's _ gooo_." 

Plagg ends on a definite whine and Adrien rolls his eyes as he straightens back up. "No, Plagg."

But he knows Plagg catches his longing look towards the windows anyway, because Adrien catches the resulting triumphant gleam in his dragon's eyes. Plagg knows that Adrien _ does _ want to leave, and preferably sooner rather than later. Adrien just... wants to convince his father to _ let _ him go. He thinks he might have a chance if he can convincingly frame it as a learning experience.

Plagg, naturally, vehemently disagrees.

Adrien takes a seat at the ornate desk that takes up too much of one side of his room, spreading his papers out and studying them with a deep sigh. He could learn a lot _ more _ about the Thirty Kingdoms if he could actually go out and _ see _ them. Books and scrolls are wonderful to have but they aren't _ enough_.

Plagg slinks under his chair and curls around his feet, settling with a low grumble and shoving one wing rudely into Adrien's lap. Adrien sighs and reaches out to run one hand over the back of Plagg's head, catching briefly on his dorsal fins before taking his hand away. "Come on, Plagg, he'll come around."

"Kid," Plagg says, with a deep ache in his voice that Adrien's only heard once or twice before. "You know he won't."

Adrien pauses. 

He doesn't think about Plagg's scars very much. He _ very deliberately _ doesn't think about the way his dragon has scars laced deep around his right foreleg, like he'd been tearing at a trap for as long as he could manage before someone came to check it.

As much as Adrien didn't have a choice about living in the tower, Plagg didn't, either. His father didn't go out and _ hire _ a dragon, he went out and _ trapped _ Plagg. Or, well, sent someone out to trap Plagg- Adrien really, really doubts his father went after any dragons himself. 

If he _ had _ maybe he would have realised how intelligent they really are. That's not something Adrien's ever found information on in any of his books, and Plagg himself had hidden it for a long time. He'd only started speaking to Adrien because Adrien had taken to sitting on the stairs and talking to Plagg first.

Plagg says _ all _ dragons are nearly as intelligent as him, and Adrien's never seen any reason to disbelieve him. 

The thing that baffles Adrien is that Plagg _ can _ leave. He knows Adrien would never stop him, and no one else is ever here at night or during holidays any more. They've all taken to assuming that Plagg is all the guard (and often, all the company) that Adrien needs.

But Plagg won't go.

He asks Adrien to go every morning, frequently waking him up early to suggest they leave the tower, and then he just- doesn't go. 

"Plagg," Adrien says, finally, because he's been staring at a blank page for fifteen minutes by then. He's doodled absently in the corners of it but it's just tiny anatomical sketches of Plagg's wings and claws. "You don't have to stay, you know."

Plagg lifts his head and wraps his tail around Adrien's feet, shoving his wing further into Adrien's lap. "Yeah, kid. I know."

Adrien waits, but Plagg doesn't say anything else.

They're still not sure _ which _festival is going on, their calendar isn't as detailed as they'd like, but no one comes the next day, either. Or the one after.

Plagg's rolled onto his back on the rug, idly juggling a stoppered inkwell in the air with his hind legs, his wings sprawled out in an ungainly heap that honestly looks really uncomfortable. "Never understood this, you know. It'd make more sense to me if he came and spent _ more _ time with you on holidays." Twisting his head, Plagg's voice turns low and mean as he adds, "Y'know, assuming he didn't send his steward instead. _ Again_."

Adrien shakes his head, by now just as bored and frustrated as his dragon. "Not helping, Plagg. Can't you-"

He's interrupted by the sound of something very large and very _ heavy _ ploughing into the base of the tower. 

They know that's where it hit, because the tower starts to _ tilt_, and Adrien and Plagg go diving for each other immediately. 

Plagg hits Adrien _ hard_, his claws closing on Adrien's shoulders roughly enough to tear his shirt, and wraps his wings around them both. Adrien clings to Plagg in return as they go tumbling sideways and glance off the edge of Adrien’s desk. Plagg hisses and Adrien sees a bloody tear in his wing for a moment before Plagg rolls them out of the way and then out of the window.

Adrien hears a snap when they hit the ground and Plagg lets out another hiss. 

"Plagg!" Adrien gasps, trying to twist out of his dragon's hold, but Plagg won't let go of him. "Plagg, are you okay?"

"Oh, no," an unfamiliar voice says, full of worry. "I'm sorry, I didn't think- Tikki, can you lend a hand?"

"Of course," another unfamiliar voice answers, and Adrien realises far too belatedly that he and Plagg have both gone entirely still to listen to the strangers, because it's been so long since they've _heard_ strangers.

Which means neither of them scrambles out of the way of the new dragon's roaring breath fast enough.

Adrien slams his eyes shut and ducks his head against Plagg as white light surrounds them both, hissing himself, but he doesn't feel any pain. Instead the light is warm and refreshing, like basking in the sun on the window seat. 

Plagg finally lets go and Adrien opens his eyes.

He finds himself blinking up at a strange girl, who has a strange dragon perched on her back and peering interestedly over her shoulder. The other dragon's wings are spread in a way that makes Adrien have to blink again before he registers that the wings he's seeing are attached to the dragon and not the girl. 

"I'm Marinette," she says, offering her hand and then pulling Adrien back to his feet with surprising strength. Her dragon lets out a trill and scrambles down to nudge Plagg upright as well. "This is Tikki, she has healing breath. Sorry, we didn't mean to scare you."

"Yeah," someone else calls, and Adrien looks up to see a boy his age swinging down from the back of an absolutely massive green dragon. "Chloe and Alya over there just get way, _ way _ too competitive." He nods at something behind Adrien, and Adrien turns to see two other teenagers, both with dragons who are more than large enough to ride, arguing at the crumpled base of the tower.

Adrien stares at the tower for a long moment, trying to dredge up some reaction to seeing it in ruins, but the only thing he really feels about it is a guilty sense of relief. He and Plagg are okay; he doesn't honestly care that much about anything else that was in there. 

"I'm Nino," the boy continues, as his dragon circles closer. "This is Wayzz." He tilts his head. "Your dragon's Tikki size too! You guys wanna ride with me? Marinette and Tikki usually do, too, Wayzz can carry a lot."

"Um," Adrien finally manages, blinking rapidly as Plagg stumbles over and shoves his head under Adrien's arm, propping him up and glaring around him distrustfully. "What's happening?" 

The other girls, Chloe and Alya, rejoin them just as he asks. The one Nino called Chloe flips her hair back and says, in a tone of long suffering, "We're wasting daylight, that's what's happening."

Adrien starts to say something else, then turns back with a start. "...I recognise you."

She sniffs. "Well you _ should_, we're from neighbouring kingdoms." She relaxes slightly, though, and adds grudgingly, "And we met when we were kids, a couple times."

Alya steps in, sounding disgruntled. "Which means that instead of carrying out our _ actual mission _ little miss _brat_ here saw your tower and decided we had to come get you _ right now_. Instead of, oh, I don't know, on the way _ back _ maybe?"

Marinette rolls her eyes and offers a hand to Plagg, who sniffs it suspiciously while darting glances at Tikki. Tikki trills laughter at him and Adrien suppresses a snort when he sees the edges of his dragon's scales flush. "She made good points, Alya, she just should maybe have made them _ before _ she was getting Pollen to slam into the tower."

Chloe's dragon raises her head, blinking sheepishly as she looms over them. "That was an accident. Sorry," she adds, looking down at Plagg and Adrien. "I only meant to knock."

Adrien looks at the size of the Pollen's claws, then back at Marinette, who only sighs.

"Now's a good time anyway," Plagg says, suddenly. "Let's go now. No one's coming to check until after the festival, let's get as far away as we can."

"They'll be celebrating for another few days," Marinette says, satisfied. "We can finish our mission _ and _ be long gone by then."

Nino's still looking at him. "Dude hasn't actually agreed to come with yet."

"_Yes_," Plagg insists immediately, with obvious agitation. "Yes, he's going, we should go, get on the dragon kid-" He draws back enough to shove Adrien insistently in the small of the back with his snout, sending him stumbling towards Wayzz before Marinette hastily catches his arm.

"Um," Adrien says, his face heating up, and Marinette hastily lets go. "We're- we want to go, really, but- where are we going? What's going on?"

Marinette grins at him and Tikki swarms up her back again, hooking her neck over the human's shoulder and flaring her wings back out. Adrien notices for the first time that Marinette's clothes are heavily reinforced wherever the dragon's claws are settled and takes a closer look at the girl and dragon's combined stance. 

Tikki's tail is deliberately draped down around one of Marinette's legs, too. The winged-human profile they're presenting is clearly deliberate. 

Adrien's torn between delight and _ Plagg and I could do that_.

He isn't torn for long, because Plagg crows and leaps up his back. Adrien winces and staggers slightly; unlike Marinette, _ his _ clothes are not made to withstand a dragon's claws.

He hears Chloe and Alya both start snickering.

"Alya, Tikki, Trixx and I are from a group of dragon riders," Marinette explains, then pauses, looking thoughtful. "Well we're _all_ dragon riders now. But the four of us were part of the group originally, and a few years back someone started trapping our dragons." She nods over at Wayzz. "Wayzz was one of the last to go missing, and he came back with Nino."

Nino slides down off his dragon, landing with an ease that indicates long practise. "I'm guessing you already know what happened."

"...Yeah." Adrien reaches one hand up to Plagg. "Father never noticed Plagg's smarter than _ he _ is."

Plagg lets out a pleased rumble.

"Yeah, well, I dunno who started it, but it's all the Middle Kingdoms doing it now." Nino puts one hand flat against Wayzz's side. "Everyone who can trap a dragon or pay for a trapper started usin' them to guard their castles, or their flocks, or their kids."

"The flocks didn't go very well all on their own," Wayzz says dryly. "_Those _ dragons eventually made it back _ very _ happy." 

"At least some of them brought supplies back," Marinette tells him, before turning back to Adrien. "Anyway, once Wayzz and Nino told us exactly what was going on, we started, uh." She looks sheepish. "Well, I suppose we're a raiding party, really."

Adrien and Plagg look at each other.

Alya comes closer, her own dragon crowding close to her back. "Someone around here's got a trapped dragon they're using to attack the other kingdoms. The dragon _ could _ be willing, but the reports we've had kinda made it seem like he's not? We were here to check that out. But, well." She spreads her hands and tilts her head at him. "Chloe saw the tower and sort of... um, dove."

"Yeah, she does that," Nino says, dryly. 

Chloe glares at him. 

"She dove out the window when we came to rescue _ her_," Alya tells Adrien. "She didn't even wait for an explanation. I'm surprised she remembered to aim for Pollen."

Plagg snaps idly at the air over Adrien's shoulder, rustling his wings restlessly. "Sounds like she had the right idea."

"_Thank _you," Chloe says haughtily.

"So, um." Marinette rubs the back of her neck sheepishly and meets his eyes. "You don't have to come with, I guess, but also we were probably gonna come right back and ask if you wanted to anyway?"

"Also, you knocked down the tower," Plagg points out, and Adrien rolls his eyes because Plagg sounds way too pleased about it. "So many boring books and stuffy sculptures ruined, so sad. Can't go back now."

Adrien looks around again. It's strange to see other people at all, but it's even stranger to see the way their dragons are crowding close to them and joining in the conversation. If he's honest, he's always assumed that he would give in and take off with Plagg eventually but he'd also assumed- he doesn't know what he'd assumed. That he and Plagg would have to hide, definitely. That they'd have to keep hiding Plagg's intelligence as well, probably.

Definitely that they'd still be alone.

"So," Marinette says, expectantly, and he turns back to see her holding out her hand. "Are you coming?"

Adrien takes it, laughing a little under his breath at Plagg's triumphant crow. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> none of these were supposed to have second parts originally, they were all intended as oneshots, but it turns out im bad at that so
> 
> for the 'nightmares' prompt for adrienaugreste, thanks shinobicyrus!
> 
> this is chronologically before the first chapter

For the first few weeks Plagg is honestly sure it's a trap. 

Well. Another trap. He still hasn't forgiven himself for being caught in the first one.

But the boy comes to sit on the stairs at night, quietly at first, sometimes bringing schoolwork with him and working on it in silence with occasional glances over at Plagg. Plagg expects those glances to be nervous or frightened or both, but they aren't. The sidelong looks he catches from the kid are bright and curious and sometimes, strangely, _ yearning_.

Plagg is suspicious. Plagg is always suspicious, but this is different. 

He doesn't _ think _ the humans know how imprinting works. He doesn't think they're letting the boy near him deliberately. He suspects, honestly, that the boy isn't supposed to be coming near him at all, judging by the bits of lessons he overhears each morning and the way that the stern-faced woman who comes to teach the kid always goes directly to the stairs and never lets the boy come down them to meet her.

There's definitely supposed to be a locked door at the top of those stairs, but it obviously isn't much of a deterrent, because the kid comes down every night.

Plagg still doesn't go anywhere near the kid for the first several weeks. He stays curled in his corner, gnawing at the cuff that's still caught around his ankle, slamming his own magic against the trapper's binding spell to no effect. The most frustrating thing about it is that it isn't even _ strong _ magic, it's simply too completely incompatible with his own for even his destructive breath to have much effect on it. The tower itself is warded, too, but much less comprehensively. That's a ward Plagg is far more confident he can wear away at. He's surprised they'd bothered at all, considering how frustrating the ward on his chain is proving.

The princeling keeps coming to sit on the stairs, despite Plagg's dangerous displays. He thinks the kid is actually creeping _ closer _ each night.

Plagg might be more surprised by that if he'd seen the kid's dad show up more than just the day they'd chained Plagg inside the tower. 

The kid's dad almost never comes to visit, and although he sends his steward to teach the boy even she doesn't stay longer than his lessons take each morning. By the time the sun is at its highest they're alone again. 

The kid is alone a lot. 

Most of the time.

(No flock would ever leave any hatchling by himself so often).

Plagg might still be able to overlook that and ignore the princeling, but then the kid starts _ talking _ to him. 

Well, more _ at _ him, than anything. Plagg listens out of boredom, initially, but he starts to listen more closely when he hears the way the kid's voice rises and falls in a surprisingly soothing way, and he realises that the kid sounds-

He sounds so lonely.

Plagg is a lone dragon by choice, he's never wanted to join a flock, but he still recognises the kind of longing in the boy's voice that he used to hear from nestmates years and years ago. He's never heard quite so _ much _ of it before. 

"I don't understand what I did wrong," the kid is saying, despondently. Once again he's brought schoolwork down with him, and once again Plagg wonders at it. If the kid truly _ is _ concerned with the level of his work, surely he'd be completing it upstairs, instead of hunched over on what have to be cramped and uncomfortable stairs? There isn't even enough light in the narrow stairwell for Plagg to be sure the boy knows what he's doing, much less that he can see his scrolls long enough to know what he did _ wrong_.

Then the kid continues and Plagg realises his mistake. 

"He used to at least come by once a week," the princeling says, his shoulders slumping, his eyes not anywhere near his schoolwork. "He used to come by every day, before that, and then he eventually just... stopped coming." He turns away hastily, but not before Plagg hears him sniffing unhappily. "I think he blames me for Mother not coming back."

Plagg almost replies that time, but the kid disappears back up the stairs before the dragon can see him start crying.

Plagg stares down at the cuff that he is, by now, much closer to wearing through and thinks. He's always tended to avoid humans- which has, clearly, been the right choice- but there's still something about this entire situation that seems _ off_, even to him. 

He doesn't put all the pieces together until he hears the kid trying to sneak past him one night. Plagg has absolutely no intention of stopping the princeling from leaving, but the boy doesn't have any way to know that, so the dragon holds himself very still and listens closely instead. 

"Come on, come on," the kid is muttering at the door, and then there's the sound of something snapping and a bitten-off curse and then nothing.

When Plagg raises his head, far too curious not to investigate, the kid's forehead is pressed to the door, his eyes screwed shut. 

There's a snapped-off lock pick in the door.

Plagg rouses a bit more, because here's something that's never occurred to him before. The princeling is clearly miserable here, and just as clearly isn't afraid of Plagg, so- why _ is _ the kid still here?

Plagg's never thought that maybe they'd locked the kid in here _ with _him. 

(Largely because that's _ idiocy_, who locks a hatchling in with a strange dragon-)

The boy finally turns around and slides down to sit on the floor, his back to the solid door. He draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in them, making strange muffled gasping noises that Plagg recognises from the few times the kid's fled back up the stairs.

Plagg eyes the door behind the princeling, then looks down at the cuff he's nearly gnawed off his leg by now. Then looks back at the kid. 

His destruction magic might be able to make short work of the door. Plagg hasn't tried it on the tower itself because he would also take out the _ tower_, and he doesn't think the kid deserves that. The tower is pretty obviously not the kid's idea. 

But if the kid doesn't want to _ be _ here-

Plagg hasn't been a part of a flock before. He hadn't seen much point. But now, he doesn't think he's going to be willing to sleep without someone around to stand watch for a while, in case there are more of this new brand of trapper lurking about.

A single scrawny human kid is not a flock. 

But Plagg finds himself wanting to take him with anyway.

The kid falls asleep like that, curled unhappily against the door, and Plagg can't keep from wincing. The boy's going to be in trouble if his instructor finds him there in the morning, judging by the way he'd waited until nightfall and snuck down here to try and break out.

For the first time Plagg uncurls enough to move over next to the princeling. Plagg's chain easily reaches the entire interior of the tower's ground floor, something he's been careful not to let the boy know, but right now he's realising he _ wants _ him to know. 

Plagg has never had a nest of his own, never _ wanted _ a nest or hatchlings or the responsibility that comes with them, but this is-

Maybe it's a little weird, that he's getting this attached to a human princeling when he's never been more than distantly affectionate with the few draconic hatchlings he's been around for any amount of time. Plagg is vaguely aware that at one point it hadn't been that unusual for dragons to 'adopt' abandoned humans, that there are a few clans who still do so (and that at least one of them has a thriving human population that adopts abandoned dragons in turn- Plagg has avoided them, but he knows _of_ them), but he's never expected to find _ himself _ wanting to take a human hatchling under his wing.

The boy's sleep is already restless. He keeps curling tighter in on himself, whimpering in his sleep, and his grip on his knees has tightened the point where his knuckles are going white. His eyes are flicking rapidly back and forth beneath the closed lids and while Plagg is not familiar with human nightmares beyond rumours he's pretty sure that's what he's seeing.

He snakes his neck closer to the kid, mantling his wings and at the same time dropping closer to the ground to try and look like less of a threat. Not that the boy has ever seemed to see him as a threat, and anyway Plagg knows he's one of the smaller dragons and tends to be taken less seriously as a result (which Plagg will not hesitate to take_ full _ advantage of, usually), but he doesn't want to risk scaring off his princeling. 

Plagg nudges the boy in the side, carefully, trying to wake him without startling him. 

He doesn't expect the boy to jerk awake so immediately, panting, his eyes darting around frantically. His gaze lands on Plagg's head, resting low by his side as Plagg looks up at him, and his brow furrows. 

"Oh. It’s you," the kid says gently, wiping at his eyes with one hand and offering the other cautiously to Plagg, palm up in front of the dragon's muzzle with no sign of fear. "Hey, bud, I'm- I'm all right." He blinks, then smiles shakily. "Were you worried about me? 'Cause I-I dunno how to help, but I'm worried about you, too." His gaze slides down to Plagg's cuffed foreleg and his smile crumbles. "I'm sorry, they should never have done this to you."

Blinking lazily, Plagg raises his head just enough to press into the kid's hand. "Kinda looks like they did it to _ you _ first, kid."

To his credit the boy's most visible reaction is nothing more than jerking slightly as his eyes shoot wide open. Hesitantly, he lets his hand rest on Plagg's snout as he says, barely above a whisper, "You can talk?"

Plagg snorts, letting only the tiniest bit of smoke curl from his nostrils. Again, the kid shows no sign of fear, and although Plagg's definitely never felt the urge to imprint until very recently he feels another surge of protective affection for this hatchling. "Kid, I'm probably smarter than a lot of the humans you know. I'm _ definitely _ smarter than that woman they've got teaching you, does she know that the stuff she's telling you about native plants is way out of date? If you see any red berries anywhere, kid, do _ not _ eat them, they got cross-bred with dragon's bane like two decades ago and they ain't good for either one of us."

"Oh," the kid says, faintly, still staring at Plagg.

Plagg nudges him again, a bit harder this time, and the kid moves a little closer to him. 

That's not the reaction Plagg expected. 

If Plagg _ is _ imprinting, something he's always assumed he was _ never _ going to do, it looks like the kid is imprinting just as hard- and Plagg is reasonably certain that humans _ aren't supposed to do that_, but then their hatchlings are also definitely not meant to be locked in lonely towers with only a dragon for company.

"So-" the kid starts, and then stutters to a halt, and then takes a deep breath and tries again. There's a pain in his voice that's hard for Plagg to identify when he says, forlornly, "Does this mean you really _ have _ been listening to me?"

Plagg raises his head a little more, shifting a few small steps forward as he does, careful not to crowd the princeling. "Yeah, kid, every word."

"Oh," he says again, the traces of bewilderment still on his face fading into something else, some human expression Plagg hasn't learned yet. "I didn't- I didn't realise, I'm sorry. I never meant to- to annoy you, or-"

Plagg blinks, baffled. "You ain't annoying me, kid, talk all you like." He nods down at his battered cuff, lip curling back in distaste for a moment before he guiltily remembers that humans are generally not comforted by sharp fangs. "Not like I'm going anywhere, either."

"They shouldn't have done it," the kid says, more firmly, and to Plagg's surprise he reaches down to the cuff himself and runs his hand over it with a frown.

And it's Plagg that startles this time, because there is something in his human's touch that is definitely _ not _ supposed to be there. 

It's faint- it feels like an echo, or a far-off mirage- but somehow, impossibly, there's _ destruction _ magic bleeding off the kid. Plagg has yet to meet even another dragon with his brand of magic. There is _ no way _ a human, any human, should have it.

Plagg realises then that he's had every intention of stealing the kid for a while now, but this clinches it. When they get out of the tower he's taking his hatchling with. 

And- he's _ wondered _what possible reason there could be that the tower had already been guarded against destruction magic, if somewhat inefficiently, but if the boy's father is aware that his son is capable of it then that gives Plagg his missing reason.

Plagg doesn’t think they’d known what his own abilities were when they’d caught him. If they really hadn’t, then the tower’s defences had seemed like far too large a coincidence. 

The kid hesitates, hand still resting on the rusting cuff, and says quietly, "My name is Adrien. What's yours?"

Plagg has never given his name to a human before, but there have been a lot of firsts in the past several weeks. "It's Plagg, kid." He nods down at where Adrien's hand is heating the cuff, something he very much doubts the kid has noticed. "An' I want you to try something."

"Plagg," Adrien repeats quietly, before focusing his attention on the metal band as well. Plagg's gotten it to rust more than he'd initially thought likely, given whatever protections are layered on it, but the primary thing stopping him has been that it's a _ human _form of magic that actively resists his own.

And his hatchling is human, but the kid's strangely echoing magic is _ not_. That combination may be exactly what they need.

"Try an' focus on this, real hard, and picture it corroding," Plagg tells Adrien, nodding at where his claws are raking furrows in the ground beneath them. "Or crumbling, or fading, whatever comes easiest to you."

Adrien blinks, before looking up at him uncertainly. "Plagg, I'm not a mage."

"Kid," Plagg says firmly, though he wants to take the kid and _ go _ more with each passing second. "I know that, but try it anyway."

"...all right." Adrien looks back down, brows furrowing, and though nothing happens for several long minutes he doesn't show any sign of giving up. 

It pays off when a dark crack starts in the middle of the metal and swiftly spreads, a pitch black sort of rust overtaking the cuff until it crumbles off Plagg's leg entirely. 

Plagg darts his head down to his freed foreleg and gnaws on it briefly, _ finally _ able to relieve the irritating itching sensation the dampening magic had caused. He's felt that itch all over, though nowhere quite as bad as his foreleg, and he wonders just how _ much _ of the tower has that inept ward against destruction magic.

That inward-facing ward. Plagg had assumed that had been adjusted inward when they'd caught _ him_, but the knowledge that the princeling somehow, impossibly, shares that rare form of magic puts it in a new light.

It doesn't seem like the kid is aware of it, either. He'd been trying a lock pick on the door, not magic, and he's claimed he's not a mage.

Plagg hasn't lost any of his suspicion. This probably is a trap in more ways than one. He doesn't know if anyone involved has any idea how or when a dragon imprints, much less that they can and do imprint with humans as well as other dragons, but even if that's what they wanted from the start Plagg probably hasn't had a chance since the first night the kid had come slinking down the stairs to talk to a trapped and unfamiliar dragon. Plagg's long since noticed that even when the other humans are around, those few hours on certain days that they seem to bother to remember that they've left a _ kid _ in here with him, they don't listen to his hatchling.

"Seen but not heard' is a human belief. Dragons don't share in it; if a hatchling has something important enough to them to speak up about it, then it's important enough to be listened to, even if it seems inane. It might _ be _ inane, but if it's important enough for the hatchling to share it's important _ enough_. 

Plagg has heard the kid's teacher- his father's steward, if Plagg is following the human's weird connections correctly- repeat that 'seen but not heard' crap more than once. As though they ever even let the kid _ see _ anyone in the first place. 

"So," Adrien says, lifting his head, and Plagg catches the faint glint of tears still on his lashes before the kid blinks. "So you can leave now, Plagg. I really am sorry, I don't-" He falters, then rallies again. "I don't understand why they wanted you here, too."

Because the tower was to keep you _ in_, Plagg doesn't tell him. Because I was only ever supposed to be a way to keep others _ out_. 

"Y'know," Plagg says instead, raising to his haunches and tilting his head down at the hatchling, considerately. "Don't really have a pressing reason to be elsewhere. Might as well stay a bit longer, kid." He exhales, letting heat as well as smoke escape this time, far enough about the kid's head to not be any danger to him. When Adrien looks up at him uncertainly Plagg takes the chance to swipe at the door handle, destroying any evidence of the lock pick and any chance of the kid facing repercussions for it. "Got free food here, anyway." He glances behind himself, at the stone floor and straw of the tower's ground floor. "Could be more comfortable, but eh, can't have everything."

"You could come upstairs," Adrien blurts, his eyes wide again, that painful note of hope back in his voice as it shakes slightly. "You'll fit up the stairs, there's room up by me. They- you know already when Nathalie's here, that's the only time you'd have to come back down."

And that's a very, very limited number of hours in a day. Plagg doesn't do much to suppress his pleased rumble at this plan. 

The kid doesn't know it but he's already proved they can combine their magic for a stronger effect. It's doubtful that it's enough to break out of here just yet, but it _ will _ be, especially if Plagg can manage to teach him. 

And it's painfully obvious that Adrien doesn't want him to go. If Plagg leaves, Adrien's alone again, and Plagg can already see the marks that's left on the kid.

Idiot humans, mistaking isolation for safety. Even Plagg had had nestmates as a hatchling, and he isn't particularly fond of other dragons most of the time. The kid doesn't need a cage, he needs a _ flock _, and if Plagg's all he has then Plagg is staying until they can change that. 

"Lead the way, kid," he says, dropping back down onto all four feet and letting his tail lash. 

If his tail happens to hit the side of the tower, and if it happens to send the tiniest frisson of competing magic into the wards, well. That's only in Plagg's nature. 

It's harder, later, when the kid's dad seems to have caught on that dragons aren't what he thought. It's harder when the man learns at last how to manipulate his son, learns that if he strings Adrien along with scattered, unpredictable appearances then Plagg's hatchling will stay just hopeful enough for some kind of reconciliation that he resists Plagg's urging to leave.

Plagg doesn't consider the man to have any claim on Adrien at this point. If the idiot king was going to leave the kid alone with a dragon, he should have researched the potential consequences _ ahead _ of time, not well after Plagg had imprinted and Adrien had imprinted right back.

(Which, again, is _ not a human thing to do_, and Plagg can't tell if that's related to his hatchling's odd magic or if it's an unintended consequence of his isolation. It could be both, Plagg isn't sure).

But the kid sees Plagg every day and his father only rarely, which means that every day he's swayed a little further towards Plagg's suggestion of _ leaving_, of going out the window if they have to, even though Plagg's long since chipped away at the tower's defences enough that they could likely leave through the front door by now. His hatchling's father is obviously aware that those wards are being eroded _ somehow_, and they're mysteriously repaired after each time he visits, but the man doesn't seem to have figured out exactly what's happening or how to stop it.

(He always thinks to ward more strongly against Plagg _ or _ Adrien, never both).

And then another dragon goes diving for the base of their tower, and sends it crumbling, and Plagg has never wanted to join a flock before but his hatchling _ needs _ this. This is their chance to leave and for the kid to start healing in one fell swoop and Plagg is not an idiot, and he would _ be _ an idiot to pass this chance up. 

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the strange creation dragon quickly catches his eye, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PandaCatXD and Nerdyuncoolgranny both noticed and pointed out that the title is from the script's 'hall of fame!'

**Author's Note:**

> okay, i genuinely don't remember where i got this title
> 
> dragons deliberately not described in detail because whatever you think they look like, you are CORRECT


End file.
